“People in Scotland can not look to Labour in Westminster right now and anticipate us winning a general election, therefore we are ill serving the Scottish Labour Party and we are ill serving the people of Scotland”.
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“Naturally, I’m disappointed in that, but it’s no more than a disappointment”.
Mr Draper is vocal in his support for Jeremy Corbyn, especially on social media, but something he has said appears to have crossed a line, in the eyes of the Labour party. “I intend to challenge my suspension robustly and am now taking legal advice”.
On Tuesday 23rd August, I received an email from the Labour Party informing me that I have been suspended from membership.
Labour said the party did not discuss national executive committee decisions on individual members.
He was booed as he added: “I’m not even sure Jeremy did vote In”.
Mr Smith said he was “gutted” by the European Union referendum result, and said he was prepared to fight Brexit by opposing a vote to trigger Article 50 in parliament and by pledging to remain or rejoin the European Union in a manifesto for the next general election.
He said: “Labour’s objective has always been to shift the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people”. The party’s general secretary, Iain McNicol, has also tweeted to correct McDonnell’s statement saying Draper had been suspended by “party officials”, to stress it had been done by the NEC.
More than 50,000 applications to become registered supporters were rejected for “technical reasons” – such as duplicate applications, where people hit the refresh button on the online form multiple times, or failure to make the payment deadline.
Draper said he has not been able to appeal the decision over remarks posted on Twitter, the details of which have not been made clear to him.
He told Mr Corbyn: “The reality is in the a year ago when you’ve been leader of the Labour party across the United Kingdom, we’ve gone from second to third behind the Tories”.
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Although some high-profile Remain campaigners backed a second referendum, pro-EU Conservatives expressed scepticism over what one described as a stunt. I don’t do that myself and I’ve asked other people not to. It is not known whether Sainsbury, who is on a leave of absence from the Lords, is still a Labour member.
